Summer officially arrives this week, so let's assume some of you readers in Our Town and far beyond, have had or will have in the next few months a vacation planned, or already enjoyed. Hopefully, your experience will not be what yours truly and my brood experienced many years ago on one of our memorable (?) trips.
The vacation I am going to relate to you I believe happened in the late 1980's, and involved our entire family of 5 (3 school age children, mother Lady Deborah, and me).
We were on an extended approximate 2-week adventure, visiting 3 national parks, Grand Teton (GT) and Yellowstone in Wyoming, and Glacier/Waterton in Montana/Alberta, Canada.
The trip began with a flight to the Jackson Hole, WY, airport, landing in the only commercial airport within a U.S. national park. We then rented a vehicle, and drove the remainder of the trip, before flying home. My bride and I had previously been to the 2 Wyoming parks, but had not taken our children to see them yet. As my father, Col. C.H. Breedlove, had instilled in my core DNA, traveling is the greatest practical education for anyone, especially younger children. They usually remember the outings forever!
I am sure this longer vacation had many "zingers" (memorable events !). However, during this weekly installment, I am going to relate 3 special ones to you.
#1) Near the beginning of our trip, we were driving our rental around beautiful Jenny Lake, Leigh Lake, and String Lake at the base of the magnificent Teton Mountains. I had been filming Mother Nature at her finest with a newly purchased large movie camera, possibly acquired specifically for this family vacation. Well, I exited our stopped vehicle in order to see a coyote and other wildlife we spotted while driving, before making my impromptu stop. As the wildlife left the roadway we were parked on, I desperately wanted to keep following the animals, so jumped in the rental with the rest of our family, and took off in hot pursuit. As I pulled away from the stationary site, I heard a loud thud, so quickly looked in my rear view mirrors. You guessed it; my new movie camera was bouncing on the hard ground, as I had left it on the vehicle's roof, and forgotten it.
No more movie camera filming for that trip, dear friends. Electronic devices don't do well following sharp falls on hard ground!
#2) A few days later while we were still visiting GT Park, we were sitting in the large parking lot in Colter Bay, enjoying a beautiful summer afternoon. Well, it quickly became not as beautiful when I discovered I had locked the rental vehicle keys inside the vehicle. Remember, this was long ago when less technology then "allowed" people to lock keys inside vehicles. To quickly summarize this vacation hiccup, I walked to the only service station on-site at remote Colter Bay, and inquired about getting it unlocked. They informed me they could travel the couple of blocks to where I was stranded, and unlock it for a slight service charge. I then walked back to our vehicle, and told Lady Deborah the situation, and that I would continue to try myself to unlock it, and, thus, save the service charge. That solution lasted maybe 5 minutes, until our spousal "disagreement" became unpleasant enough for me to quickly get the service station attendant down to unlock our car. Anyone else had similar spousal disagreements, out there?
#3) Lastly, our family of 5 was sitting around iconic Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone, waiting patiently for the incredible thermal feature to erupt. For some reason I cannot recall why almost 4 decades later, I began looking at our trip outline, showing me where we were scheduled to be each day/night? Oh, my, I realized, I had made a huge mistake! At the time I looked at the list, I knew we were 1 day behind the schedule! I also knew, since we had lost our reservation that day because we should have been there yesterday, it would be almost impossible to find a room vacancy anywhere in that remote, but highly tourist-visited area during the summer season. After the famous geyser erupted, we erupted back to our vehicle, and raced off on park roads to West Yellowstone, Montana. Every motel we passed had "NO VACANCY" displayed on their sign, even the older ones with only 1 neon letter still shining; the rest burned out due to age/neglect. However, near the end of town, Thunderbird Inn, appeared to have a vacancy. I ran (like Chevy Chase of SNL fame) into their lobby, almost throwing my money at their on-duty clerk, before another desperate traveler could arrive. Thank goodness, for the sanity of our family, I secured the motel's last available room.
Well, I hope I haven't overly excited you with this brief sketch of our family vacation long, long ago. I couldn't make this stuff up; it really happened, although, at times, I thought it was a bad dream.. Wow....
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